A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Market Education: Will India Lead the Way?

Much is made of the fact that some sectors of the U.S. economy face increasing competition from the developing world. India, in particular, is singled out for its proliferation of call centers and computer programmers.

But few people stop to ask how a developing country in which English is only learned as a second language has been able to become such an important international contender for skilled jobs requiring English fluency. The answer, at least in part, is that a large and increasing number of Indian children are being educated in private, fee-charging schools that must compete vigorously for the privilege of serving them. Even in some of the poorest slums and rural villages of India and Africa, majorities of students attend these schools, and are better served educationally than their peers in the government-run sector (and at a lower cost, to boot). Among other advantages – from the standpoint of meeting parental demand – the vast majority of Indian private schools teach all their lessons in English, as opposed to state schools which typically offer English instruction only as a separate course, when they offer it at all.

But despite the considerable size and rapid growth of the private education sector, there are still millions of families in developing countries who find it financially difficult or impossible to gain access to it. But what if those countries kick it up a notch?

A recent story in DNA Mumbai quotes Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani as saying that, “There is an urgent need for the government [to] provide vouchers to parents from the economically backward section. That way they can choose to enroll their children in private schools instead of the government-run schools, which are in a pathetic state.”

Adopting a truly free market approach to education, with financial assistance to ensure universal access, would be an incredible boon to the Indian standard of living, and an excellent lesson for rich countries still languishing under the pall of calcified government school monopolies.